Jesuit Migration Network in the U.S. and Canada Delivers Letter of Support to Honduras

ISN Staff

6 months ago

BY ISN STAFF | February 5, 2018

During a visit to Honduras, an emergency U.S. delegation delivered a letter from the Jesuit Migration Network in the U.S. and Canada to Father Melo, members of the ERIC and Radio Progreso team, and members of the RJM-CANA Network in Honduras, expressing solidarity during the country’s electoral crisis.

FULL LETTER TEXT:

Jean Denis Saint-Félix, S.J., Secretary and Kristen Lionetti, policy director, both with the Office of Justice and Ecology at the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, during an emergency delegation to Honduras in January 2018.

Dear Father Melo; members of the ERIC and Radio Progreso team; members of the RJM-CANA Network in Honduras:

As your brothers and sisters in Christ and in works of the Society of Jesus, we want to communicate to you that, although physically far away, we are in solidarity with you during this electoral crisis in Honduras, and we pray that truth and justice will “win,” resulting in a new peace and prosperity. Also know that we pray for your safety and that of so many people who have raised their voices and work for justice, denouncing corruption and impunity.

We have seen how the Organization of American States (OAS) and many other organizations recognized the need for new elections. We have also been pained to see the reports of many violations of rights of the people — their right to freedom of expression and to protest non-violently — and the repression by state security forces against their own people. We regret that our governments have not been more effective voices for democracy and the defense of human rights.

Here, especially in the United States but also in Canada, month after month, year after year, people arrive, adults and minors, forced to migrate due to violence and instability in northern Central America, including Honduras. It is a very sad situation, constantly creating separations in families. We recognize that the current situation violates the right of people to remain in their country and consequently, they have to migrate.

Together with you, we desire that a future Honduran government, legitimately elected, will work assiduously and honestly for the common good, the good of all, especially the most marginalized and impoverished. We want that government to work for the ecological well-being of the country and to defend the rights of the poor and marginalized who suffer so much from the damage caused to our Common Home, as Pope Francis refers to our planet, as well as for their defense of it.

We commit to accompanying you in your struggle for justice. Many of us have contacted the leaders of our governments, via emails or phone calls, asking that democratic electoral processes be respected and that fraudulent ones be denounced. We also have urged them to denounce acts of repression and human rights violations, known and documented.

May so many in the country who have suffered and still suffer from corruption and violence, peacefully reach a more dignified life, and soon, as God wills for all God’s sons and daughters. May you as a Jesuit organization be able to continue accompanying and serving as leaders and as a voice for so many who seek a better country and world. May the country be able to hold transparent elections that result in the will of the majority.

We, your sisters and brothers in Christ, in the Society, and in the Jesuit Network with Migrants in Central America and North America (RJM-CANA), are with you and will continue to pray and seek ways to work effectively for the good of all people and the country.